Urban Literature: A User’s Guide

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 797-805
Author(s):  
Carlo Rotella

This article addresses urbanists in various fields—history, the social sciences, planning, and more—who are interested in incorporating literary works into their teaching and research and may be looking for critical approaches that connect such work to their own expertise. It begins from the premise that the traits that make a city a city present writers with opportunities to tell stories, experiment with form, make meaning, and otherwise exercise the literary imagination. When we use “urban literature” as a category of analysis, when we try to identify relationships between cities and the writing produced in and about them, we are asserting that this writing takes shape around confronting the city as a formal, social, and conceptual challenge. This article explores examples of texts ranging from Sister Carrie to I Am Legend and beyond that engage signature urban processes such as urbanization, development, and the dense overlap of orders.

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (06) ◽  
pp. 67-81
Author(s):  
Pablo Tascón España

El presente estudio busca comprender bajo un enfoque naturalista cómo en un periodo denominado por autores de las Ciencias Sociales ( Bajoit, 2009; Sandoval, 2010) de “cambio cultural”, emerge el movimiento Hip Hop y su particular forma de expresión en la ciudad de Punta Arenas. La investigación tiene un objetivo central y busca interpretar la relación entre la expresión contracultural y los jóvenes que son parte de tal, como así también sus significados respecto al ser actores del mismo. La investigación pretende identificar, entonces, la lógica de acción actual de los jóvenes y a su vez dilucidar si existe relación o no con la raíz histórica del movimiento Hip Hop, es decir una expresión de disidencia en razón de la estructura social establecida y las contradicciones que afloran de la misma. The following study aims to understand under the naturalist approach how in a period called for authors of the social sciences (Bajoit, 2009; Sandoval, 2010) of “cultural change”, emerges the Hip Hop movement and its particular form of expression in the city of Punta Arenas. The research has a main objective and seeks to interpret the relation between the expression counterculture and the young people that are part of it, likewise the meaning concerning to be actors of it. The research pretends to identify the logic of current action of the youngsters and at the same time elucidate if there is a relation or not with the historical root of the movement “Hip Hop”, i.e. an expression of dissent aiming with the social structure established and the contradictions that came out from itself.


1989 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 30-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ira Katznelson

How, if at all, can studies of the city help us understand the distinctive qualities of the American regime? In “The Burdens of Urban History,” which refines and elaborates his earlier paper “The Problem of the Political in Recent American Urban History,” Terrence McDonald, a historian who has written on urban fiscal policy and conflict, argues that students of the city have focused their work too narrowly on bosses and machines, patronage and pluralism. In so doing, they have obscured other bases of politics and conflict, and, trapped by liberal categories of analysis, they have perpetuated a self-satisfied, even celebratory, portrait of American politics and society. This unfortunate directionality to urban research in some measure has been unwitting because historians and social scientists have been unreflective about the genealogies, and mutual borrowings, of their disciplines. Even recent critical scholarship in the new social history and in the social sciences under the banner of “bringing the state back in” suffers from these defects. As a result, these treatments of state and society relationships, and of the themes that appear under the rubric of American “exceptionalism,” are characterized by an epistemological mish-mash, a contraction of analytical vision, and an unintended acquiescence in the self-satisfied cheerleading of the academy that began in the postwar years.


1980 ◽  
Vol 5 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 141-152
Author(s):  
Robert Hollister ◽  
Lloyd Rodwin
Keyword(s):  

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manoela Carrillo Valduga ◽  
Zélia Breda ◽  
Carlos Martins Costa

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the image of Brazil and Rio de Janeiro as a blended tourism destination (TD) image, by examining the categories of the image, and whether it is positive or negative and cognitive or affective. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative approach was employed to verify the relations between the image of Brazil and Rio de Janeiro by visit, location, categories and subcategories and dimensions. Data were collected online from a “snowball” sample and were analyzed applying non-parametric hypothesis testing. Statistical analysis was performed with Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software version 25.0 for Windows. Findings Results reveal that respondents share the same image of the city of Rio de Janeiro and Brazil, a conclusion that is partially confirmed by statistical findings. The quantitative results also showed that the image is positive and “natural attractions” and “unique city attractions” are, respectively, the most mentioned subcategory and category. Cognitive attributes of the image have been more mentioned than affective ones. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the image of Brazil and Rio de Janeiro as a blended TD image has never been explored before, however, it has been assumed as being the same.


2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jo Santoso

<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: 'Amasis MT','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-fareast-language: IN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;" lang="EN-AU">Urbanization is not a new phenomenon anymore, yet the ongoing worldwide urbanization now, seen from its dimension, acceleration, and complexity, is incomparable to the previous one. In many Asian countries, most people believe that creating a city as an economic growth machine is the only way to overcome the problem of urbanization development. This trend has pushed the cities away from their primary function as a human habitat which is built based on the coexistence among social groups that live there. One of the factors which likely aggravates the social situation, if the economic crisis happens, is the weakened social relation among the society due to the occurrence of global economic. In this paper discusses the three processes which serve as a catalyst to the process of city restructuring that are commodification, privatization and commercialization. The result of the development is that the city functions as a social institution is increasingly ignored and worsens the social inequality.</span>


Geografie ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 117 (2) ◽  
pp. 234-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Kofroň

This article highlights an understudied phenomenon: the relationship between space and war. War has been waged in space and over space; hence this relationship constitutes an important, yet, among geographers, rather neglected issue. The broader significance of war is evident in the fact that war has formed important features of the modern political and social world. The relationship between war and space is presented at two main levels, tactical and strategic. It is argued that despite many changes in relations between war and space, physical space remains a key issue in any war and, as such, geographers should examine it. Such an examination cannot be limited to critical approaches or geographers will fall short in competition with scholars from other fields of the social sciences.


2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 7-37
Author(s):  
Felipe Ziotti Narita ◽  
Jeremiah Morelock

In this article, we offer a critical social analysis of crisis in light of capitalist development and, above all, in the post-2008 world. We discuss five approaches in the social sciences that deal with the problem of crisis and develop some theore­tical lines for a critical approach to the theme. We argue that precarity can be an important topic for grasping the current crises via critical approaches. The text also presents the six articles that are part of the issue we edited for Praktyka Teoretyczna entitled “Latency of the crisis.”


2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 151-160
Author(s):  
Soledad Balerdi

This paper reflects on the precautions to be taken into account when addressing the study, from the point of view of the social sciences, of cultures and communities. This is done through ethnographic research in a neighbourhood (barrio) of migrants from an indigenous community in the province of Chaco, in northern Argentina, who have migrated to the city of La Plata (in Buenos Aires province) and have settled on its periphery. The article starts from the idea that ethnicity comes into play, situationally, as a resource rather than as a distinct and immutable feature. Even when it is necessary to describe how notions like culture and ethnicity act in practice and what meaning they have for the actors, social researchers should not  historicize them in the specific contexts in which they are brought into play.Keywords: culture, ethnicity, indigenous community, ethnography, ArgentinaRésumé: Cet article met en évidence les précautions et les enjeux à prendre en considération en sciences sociales lorsque l’on aborde les questions culturelles dans les communautés. Cet article met en évidence un travail de terrain de type ethnographique dans un quartier (barrio) de La Plata (province de Buenor Aires) où se trouve une forte concentration de population migrante d’autochtones en provenance de la province de Chaco, dans le nord de l’Argentine. Plutôt que d’approcher l’ethnicité dans une perspective essentialiste et d’en faire une caractéristique immuable de l’identité, cet article s’inspire d’une approche relationnelle. Plutôt que de tenter de figer le sens de notions telles « ethnicité » ou «culture », cet article met en evidence l’importance de reconstruire le sens de ces notions à partir des données contextuelles et du sens qu’elles revêtent pour les acteurs.Mots clé: culture, ethnicité, communauté indigene, ethnographie, Argentine


Author(s):  
Laia Coma ◽  
Concha Fuentes ◽  
Lydia Sánchez

The objective of this chapter is to reflect on the importance of the construction of the concept of democratic citizenship in the secondary education classrooms in Spain through heritage education in both formal and non-formal educational contexts. The authors approach this question from different perspectives that somehow reflect the interdisciplinarity proper to this topic. The reflections and educational proposals collected are articulated through two educational scenarios: the school and the city, taken as environments with great educational potential. Beyond the issue of the setting, this chapter also discusses how and with what instruments civic competence should be worked with students. In this sense, heritage is presented as an excellent learning tool for the construction of a democratic society as well as identitary wealth.


PMLA ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 131 (2) ◽  
pp. 480-486
Author(s):  
Adélékè Adéèkó

Africanist studies conventionally restrict considerations of space to its physical dimensions. affective representations in literary writing oppose the village to the city, imbuing the village with comprehensible, but rarely historicized, routines. Until disturbed by uninvited and troubling ideas, institutions, and individuals from unknowable distances and places, the village nourishes existential certainty and sustains spiritual balance. In contrast, the corrupting, bewildering city signals instabilities of all kinds, even in the social sciences. Across the disciplines, while organic production and genuinely reciprocal relations dominate in the village, the insatiable city absorbs without giving back and never offers spiritual renewal. The village half of the spatial dyad represents what is truly African, and folklore, or orality in general, holds Africa's romance together. Its schematic character notwithstanding, the predisposition toward construing space as little more than the thin cover of more vital substances that facilitate self-understanding has produced enduring parameters for interpreting African expressive forms. With convivial marketplaces and festivals, evil forests and sacred groves, village squares and humble homesteads, depictions of the village in novels set at the beginning of colonization have fixed, perhaps permanently, perceptions of the African cultural past in reader's imaginations, and efforts to read these narratives have generated useful, axiomatic insights about meanings of traditional, everyday African life and its ritualized calibrations of the movement of time, its reifications of the social compact, and its coded references to the society's cosmic bearings. he African city has not been that fortunate.


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